VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds and Thompson Rivers WolfPack played out a goalless draw at Thunderbird Stadium on Saturday night to bring an end to their Canada West season as both teams now look ahead to the playoffs which get underway next weekend.
The match saw both teams struggle to carve out too many clear cut goalscoring opportunities against resolute backlines, with TRU recording their fourth scoreless draw in their last five matches, in a contest that had a cagey playoff feel to it at times.
"I thought we got to a few okay spots in the first half and they were maybe a few steps away from breaking it," UBC head coach
Mike Mosher said of his team's performance after the match. "Maybe more of the same in the second half. They're good defensively, they've got one of the least goals against. It's tougher to come by chances against a good defensive squad."
The closely contested match was played on Senior Night with UBC officially thanking Christopher Hansen-Burkun,
Daniel Kaiser,
Mihai Hodut,
Nick Fussell,
Peter Whyte,
Thomas Gardner,
Tristan Nkoghe and
Victory Shumbusho for their successes, commitment, and dedication to the team, the program, and to the university these past years.
Both teams saw efforts crash off the woodwork in the opening 10 minutes. Alesandro Comita cracked one of the right post for TRU seven minutes in, but UBC responded with a
Logan Chung shot that grazed the crossbar two minutes later.
Comita brought out a save from Whyte in the 34th minute, before
Markus Kaiser brought the half to an end with a fierce 25 yarder that Jackson Gardner could only parry, but the WolfPack defence managed to clear the loose ball before
Nicholas Momotani could pounce on the rebound.
The second half continued in much the same vein, with neither side able to dominate.
Shumbusho had the ball in the net in the 76th minute after a nice turn and finish from a Kaiser through ball but the assistant referee had the flag up right away for offside.
UBC sub Nkoghe nearly won it for his side with six minutes remaining with a fierce shot that Gardner tipped after great trickery from Tommy Gardner to set the chance up.
Focus now moves onto the postseason for both teams.
TRU will be hosting the U SPORTS championship in Kamloops next month and are guaranteed one of the eight berths, but they will be wanting to head into the tournament in top form and will be hoping they can find their winning ways again in the Canada West playoffs that begin next weekend.
UBC head into those playoffs as Pacific Division champions and the number one seed in Canada West. With just the winner advancing to nationals this year, Mosher knows the room for error is slim and his side need to continue to be in top form.
"We want to go get it done with this particular group, this is a wonderful group," Mosher said. "I'm looking forward to it. The goal at the start was to be first in the division and give ourselves home field advantage and we've done that.
"We've known it all year [that only one team will move on to nationals]. We've known it for a long time and we're happy to know that we're going to be at home. We're good at home and that will give us an extra boost I think."
UBC will host their quarter-final against the fourth placed team in the Canada West Prairie Division on Saturday October 29th, with a 7:00 p.m. PT kickoff.
